Chez Maggy

Chez Maggy occupies the ground floor of the Thompson Denver at 1616 Market Street, in the Union Station neighbourhood that most Denverites still call LoDo, and was the first restaurant that Michelin-starred, James Beard-nominated chef Ludo Lefebvre opened outside Los Angeles. The restaurant is named in honour of Lefebvre's late mother-in-law, Margaret — Maggy — a Colorado native who was struck and killed by a drunk driver in 2019. That fact sits behind the room rather than on the menu, but it explains why the zero-proof list here is built with the same attention as the wine list rather than being an afterthought at the bottom of the page.

The cooking is Lefebvre's take on classic French cuisine using ingredients native to Colorado: Belgian endive salad, a hearty bolognese, steak frites, all worked from local sourcing. The drinks follow the same logic of doing the familiar thing properly. Visit Denver's December 2025 guide to alcohol-free cocktails in the city describes the offering directly: "While you'll find plenty of French vino on the menu, there's also a delectable selection of zero-proof cocktails like the Earl Grey Bliss (tea-infused Ritual zero-proof gin, lemon and honey) and St. Agrestis Phony Mezcal Negroni." The Earl Grey Bliss is the house-built drink of the pair, infusing Ritual's zero-proof gin with Earl Grey before lengthening it with lemon and honey, which gives it tannin and bitterness rather than the flat sweetness that sinks most alcohol-free cocktails. The Phony Negroni uses St. Agrestis's non-alcoholic bottling, one of the few zero-proof products that reads convincingly as an aperitivo. The restaurant serves from 7am on weekdays and 8am at weekends through to 9pm or 10pm, so it covers breakfast, lunch and dinner; the connected Bar M, in the Thompson's lobby, runs a separate cocktail programme with the same kitchen behind it.